WHY SAY NO TO FREE SOCIETY MANAGEMENT ERPs?
An apartment complex is an ever-expanding unit that is an amalgamation of families, infrastructure, facilities, homes and amenities. In large housing society units, it is next to impossible to manage all these aspects without breaking a sweat. We’re currently living in the digital and information age that has made our lives so much more convenient. I mean if you think about it, there isn’t one segment of your life today that doesn’t involve a digital aid of some kind. So, why should a mammoth task like society management be an exception? Finance being a major part of society management, society accounting software is especially a boon for the management committee members.
An apartment complex is an ever-expanding unit that is an amalgamation of families, infrastructure, facilities, homes and amenities. In large housing society units, it is next to impossible to manage all these aspects without breaking a sweat. We’re currently living in the digital and information age that has made our lives so much more convenient. I mean if you think about it, there isn’t one segment of your life today that doesn’t involve a digital aid of some kind. So, why should a mammoth task like society management be an exception? Finance being a major part of society management, society accounting software is especially a boon for all society stakeholders.
The word “free” holds a special place in our hearts, especially when it comes to us in the form of advertisements in newspapers and billboards, social media and television. Obviously, you’d want to try out anything that comes for free and doesn’t cost you a penny. It’s human nature to do so. If you look at the market today, you’ll find quite a few companies offering free society management ERPs. Sure, it does sound tempting — an ERP mechanism that offers services to handle all your society related services smoothly including an inbuilt society accounting software — why on earth would you refuse, right?! But I’m going to tell you that there’s a catch. Yes, reader. In simple words, it’s not as good as sounds. I, along with my fellow residents tried a free society accounting software so that you don’t have to. Here’s why you should walk away from anything that offers a free society management ERP:
1. Defaulter mechanism
A good society accounting software or ERP is like a digital alarm. You can follow up on your defaulters regularly because it displays the contact details and the number of days from which maintenance charge is overdue. Most of the defaulters do not forget their due dates intentionally. After all, we’re humans. On the other hand, free ERP just makes this job harder by simply handing in a list with no scope to follow up or remind the defaulters.
2. An auto mechanism for invoice:
You know what’s super convenient about a paid ERP? Things like GST, late payment penalties are set up according to the government’s timelines and orders. This reduces manual intervention to a minimum because all your arrears are calculated, and invoices are generated on their own. A paid system is integrated with many rules that are built in to make the product’s usability universal. Now, consider your free society management ERP. It lacks a government aligned auto invoice mechanism that contains directions for calculating relevant taxes and penalties. Here, you’ll have to intervene manually and ensure that your invoices are calculated correctly.
3. Audits
There’s a reason why you can trust paid society management ERPs. Not only do they care for your auditor compliance and audit FAQs but also provide audit support provided by a network of well-established field professionals. With free ERPs there’s a risk of paying heavily in the form of tax penalties.
4. Financial statements
Every society accounting software must provide auditor approved formats with inward and outward columns. A wide variety of options must be made available to the society to choose a style that best suits its expenses, savings and income. Free ERPs obviously do not provide such formats.
5. Annual processes
One of the reasons why we tried a free society management ERP, was because we wanted to make our treasurer and auditor’s job easier. Handling over 600+ units isn’t easy. We wanted a mechanism that helped balance the book with acquired savings and stopped any additional entries from being made after the book is balanced for a particular financial year. But guess what? We were shocked and disappointed to know that such automation did not even exist!
There were a lot of services that lacked in the free society management ERP that we tried. Ideally, a society accounting software should lift off the workload of the residents by handling TDS reports, multiline invoicing, automated updating of logs, vendor management, etc. Things that the free society ERP we tried, failed to provide.
This brings me to my conclusion. When you’re adopting a free society that is clearly inefficient and doesn’t even offer the basic services required to run a society, you need to question why it’s free in the first place. Is there some glaring disadvantage or weakness that you’re overlooking? Will they cost you later for something that you didn’t sign up for? What is the company’s source of income if it’s not customers who are paying for their services? There is always a fear of these free ERPs of shutting down if their investor’s money is used up.
Don’t get swayed away by marketing tactics that persuade you to try out free ERPs. Instead, try to understand why paid ERPs cost you money. After all, it’s the loss of the entire community’s time, effort and data to migrate to a paid society accounting software from a failed free society management ERP (speaking from personal experience here). In India, more and more housing societies from big metropolitan cities are switching to fully paid society ERPs and finally learning to say no to free society management ERPs. Are you?
